Apple gets Samsung Galaxy devices banned in the Netherlands

The Apple-Samsung saga continues, folks. Today, a Dutch court has now banned several Samsung Galaxy devices from selling in the Netherlands. Apple has been rewarded the ban from the court because Samsung was accused of infringing on an Apple patent relating to the navigation interface in photo galleries.

Apple and Samsung have already been through this dance once before on the same exact patent issue last year. Samsung was accused of implementing the same "bounce back" feature as iOS when scrolling through images, so Samsung replaced it with a blue flash that would appear on the edges of images. However, Samsung has refused to “sign a declaration of abstinence committing to not infringing the patent,” but Samsung claims that the issue had been fixed in the Netherlands, and that its Galaxy products used Samsung's own technology.

The ban only applies to Galaxy products that run Android 2.2.1 and higher, and that don't use Samsung's proprietary photo gallery software. The court ordered Samsung to inform Apple how much net profit it made from sales of its infringing Galaxy products since June 27, 2011. From there, a different court will determine how much of that profit Samsung must give to Apple. If Samsung continues to infringe on Apple's patent, the company will be required to pay Apple 100,000 euros ($129,000) for every day it violates the ban.

A Samsung spokesperson said that the company was disappointed with the court's ruling, and Apple did not respond to a request for comment. In another lawsuit between the two companies in the Netherlands, the court ruled that Samsung does not infringe on a multitouch patent from Apple, and this coming January, the court is set to place their verdict in another Apple-Samsung lawsuit dealing with tablet design rights.